Passive voice

Contents

The passive voice is made with the auxiliary verb to be and the past participle.
The auxiliary shows the tense.
The rubbish is collected every day. (present simple)
My suit is being cleaned. (present continuous)
He Read more

News storiesSix short news stories (Hong Kong related). Students identify passive voice examples and say why they are used (first three examples); Gap fill from verb prompts (second three). This is quite challenging and includes examples of reduced relative clauses using passive and active participles.

Passive snakes and ladders30 cards - multiple-choice and error correction. Focuses on errors related to intransitive verbs (happen, arrive etc.) and verbs that are often used intransitively (start, open etc.)

Passives quiz-makingStudents in two teams are given seven skeleton sentences containing general knowledge facts (2 Hong Kong-related). (1) They expand the skeleton sentence to form statements. (2) They produce questions from question word prompts. (3) Ask the other team their quiz questions.
Includes present continuous, future, passive report structures and passives with modals.

Passives worksheetSs fill in all different forms of passive, then analyze small groups of sentences to consolidate their understanding of rules on when to use the passive + common errors - trying to use intransitive verbs to form the passive.
(Updated with answers 23-04-15)

Three articles in graded English on the Trump family, charting the creation of the Trump fortune.
Pre-reading section on well-known business leaders. (PDF version)
Lead-in on the Trump family. (PDF version)
Jigsaw reading for groups of three on Donald Trump, his father and grandfather.
Grammar follow-up on participle clauses (PDF advanced version)